By David Crystal

New from Cambridge University Press!

By Peter Mark Roget

This book "supplies a vocabulary of English words and idiomatic phrases 'arranged … according to the ideas which they express'. The thesaurus, continually expanded and updated, has always remained in print, but this reissued first edition shows the impressive breadth of Roget's own knowledge and interests."

The Blackwell Companion to Syntax (Vol. I-V), henceforth the BCS, is acollection of 77 articles by some leading figures in generative studies ofsyntax. The articles, or 'chapters' as the editors prefer to call them,appear here for the first time, and cover a rich variety of topicsresearched throughout the past 40 years. The chapters are arranged inalphabetical order, and range between 11 and 120 pages in length each.Together with Consolidated References and the index to all volumes, the BCSamounts to more than 3500 pages. There is also an accompanying CD-ROMcontaining a searchable electronic version of the entire BCS. The digitalversion is compatible with both PC and Mac computers.

A major concern of the generative theorist in the past 40 years or so hasbeen the systematic unraveling of the whole theory in order to attainhigher levels of theoretical and/or empirical adequacy. As a result ofthis, analyses and generalisations once assumed to be crucially importantto the dominant theory of the time may have suddenly faded into thebackground. There are times we learn with surprise that some otherwisewell-informed students of ours are only vaguely familiar with what asstudents of linguistics we considered indispensable. Current handbooks areprimarily concerned with current theorizing rather than the backgroundresearch behind it. Given the significance of research continuity insciences, the editors hope the BCS will help to fill in the gap between thepast and present of research on syntax. With this in mind, the authorsoffer historically contextualised analyses of their topics, and show howthey relate to our current understanding of syntactic phenomena.

In what follows, I focus on the last 40 chapters of the BCS (Vol. III-V).In addition to chapter summaries, each article is briefly evaluated in suchterms as its theoretical orientation, the empirical coverage, the author'sstyle of writing, and the editorial scheme of the Companion.

CHAPTER SUMMARY & EVALUATION (Volumes III-V)

VOLUME III

Chapter 38: Logophoricity (pp. 1-20)

In this chapter, Eric Reuland is concerned with logophors as forms bound inone environment but free in another. Reuland's chapter is primarilytheoretical as he focuses on Clements's (1975) and Sell's (1987) theoriesof logophoricity according to which in languages with a special system forreflecting event orientation, e.g. Niger-Congo, logophors aresystematically used for expressing such roles as SOURCE (the intentionalagent in a communication), SELF (the person whose mental state or attitudeis described by the proposition), or PIVOT (one with respect to whoselocation the proposition is evaluated). Logophoricity is the use of thepronominal system for keeping track of either of these roles throughout thediscourse. Reuland's treatment of the topic is deep and thorough. However,his study is confined to the Clements/Sells approach to logophoricity,which is too narrow in perspective once compared with the BCS editors' scheme.

Chapter 39: Long-Distance Binding in Asian Languages (pp. 21-84)

Peter Cole, Gabriella Hermon, and C.-T. James Huang investigatelong-distance reflexives in Chinese. Data from Malay, Kannada, Mupun, andeven some European languages like Dutch are also added to shed furtherlight on the typological properties of such reflexives. Such propertiesapparently include monomorphemicity, subject antecedents, and specificdomains for the occurrence of both antecedents and reflexives. The role ofdiscourse in licensing such reflexives is subject to considerable variationacross different languages. A variety of theoretical analyses are reviewedextensively including those of parameterization of the binding domain,cyclical re-indexing, and movement. The authors conclude the chapter with aword on the question of economy and long-distance binding. The chapter isan extensive but still coherent account of the topic. It remains accessibleto the average reader throughout the text. However, it is less focused thanwhat the title suggests.

Chapter 40: Long-Distance Binding in Germanic Languages (pp. 85-108)

Although Eric Reuland's introduction of the topic (variation in LD-bindingin Germanic) is quite detailed, the treatment proves to be relativelysuperficial. Rueland incorporates data on the use of anaphors from English,Icelandic, Faeroese, Mainland Scandinavian, Dutch, German, Frisian andYiddish. The variation is then captured in terms of Koster's (1985), andManzini and Wexler's (1987) parameterisation approach, Everaert's (1986)representational theory of anaphoric dependencies, Lebeuax's (1983) andChomsky's (1986) LF-movement approach to binding. The author concludes thechapter with a brief discussion of LD-binding and minimalist accounts oflanguage. The chapter's organisation fails to relate these differentanalyses of the topic coherently. As such, it turns into a list ofdifferent accounts of LD-binding mainly proposed in the eighties.

Chapter 41: Long NP-Movement (pp. 109-130)

In this chapter, Howard Lasnik and Cedric Boeckx offer a theoretically andempirically adequate review of long NP-movement phenomena as understood intransformational, P&P and minimalist terms. The data mainly come fromEnglish with some sporadic examples from Italian, Scandinavian and Chinese.Superraising, Subjacency, ECP, Relativised Minimiality, economy,equi-distance, feature movement and Agree are among the most significantcomponents of this review. Contrary to many works by these two authors, thechapter is stylistically available to the average reader, which is evenfurther improved by a coherent and focused organisation of the chapter.

Chapter 42: Middles (pp. 131-203)

Peter Ackema and Maaike Schoorlemmer investigate the properties ofso-called middle constructions. They recognise the difficulty inherent indistinguishing middles from a number of related sentence types such aspassives, inchoatives and true reflexives. For them, true middles arecharacterised with (a) the impossibility of expressing the externalargument of a middle verb as a regular DP, (b) the subject of the middlesentence carrying the role of its direct internal argument, and (c) themiddle verb being stative, non-episodic. As an example, one could mentionsuch sentences as ''Dit boek leest als een trein'' (lit.this-book-reads-like-a-train, i.e. 'this book is very easy to read') inDutch. The authors contrast middles even with the middle voice serving toexpress that the subject is acting on herself/himself (e.g. ''David wasshaving'') given the properties outlined above. Reviewing a variety ofanalyses of the different types of middle constructions, Ackema andSchoorlemmer conclude that the construction is a semantic type withdifferent languages varying drastically in the syntactic devices theyemploy to express it. The chapter is written in a textbook style, whichmakes it rather easy to follow even with no familiarity with the relevantliterature on the topic. The chapter seems to be primarily meant topopularise the topic rather than bring it back into focus, as the BCS isintended to do. As a matter of fact, I doubt the topic has ever been muchin foreground.

Hubert Haider begins the chapter with the definition of the theory-neutralnotion Mittlefeld ('midfield') as that segment of a (Germanic) clause thatincludes ''everything between C-0 on the left and the verbs on the right (p.206).'' It doesn't correspond to any constituent, and its exact mappingvaries with the theoretical model chosen. Then Haider compares the MF in OVand VO languages. This leads to the heart of the chapter where such MFphenomena as scrambling, expletive/non-expletive subjacency, the order offronting pronouns, empty MF, etc. are investigated. He shows thatscrambling is more than free base-ordering in a language withmorphologically identifiable grammatical functions as it is only OVlanguages (like German, Hindi and Japanese) that scramble. This is alsosupported by the fact that in a language like German with mixed headedness,it does not scramble in head-initial NPs and PPs but in head-final VPs andAPs. The author's treatment of the topic is empirically rich andtheoretically comprehensive. Careful and clear writing and coherentorganisation of the chapter are extra assets.

Chapter 44: Multiple-Wh-Questions (pp. 275-326)

Veneeta Dayal's review of research into multiple Wh-questions begins withwh-expressions as diagnostics of scope although they differ from quantifiedexpressions in interpretation. With regard to multiple wh-questions, Dayalclassifies languages as (a) non-fronting languages (they are either likeChinese and Japanese in that all wh-expressions remain in situ or likeEnglish with one of the wh-expressions moved to the left periphery andothers kept in situ), (b) multiple-fronting languages like Serbo-Croatianand Bulgarian with ALL wh-expressions moving to peripheral positions, and(c) languages without multiple wh-questions like Italian and Irish. Thechapter also deals with the question of typological variation insuperiority effects, and the different analyses (P&P accounts,economy-bases ones, and those based upon functional wh) proposed forexplaining superiority phenomena. The chapter is a thorough investigationof the topic mainly within the framework of the P&P Model. It fails tocover the bulk of minimalist studies of the topic (see Boeckx andGrohmann's 2003 for minimalist accounts of the phenomena).

Chapter 45: N-Words and Negative Concord (pp. 327-391)

Anastasia Giannakidou discusses the semantic and syntactic properties ofwhat Laka (1990) termed n-words, i.e. nominal and adverbial constituentsoccurring in negative concord (NC) structures and can provide a negativefragment answer like 'niente' (Italian), 'res' (Catalan), and 'nanimo'(Japanese). English 'any' is an existential polarity item rather than ann-word as it cannot provide a fragment answer to a question like 'what didJohn say?' Based on the distinction between strict and non-strict NC, theauthor provides a typology of n-words in Romance, Slavic, Greek andHungarian. N-words in strict NC do not contribute an existential quantifierindependently of negation. She concludes that ''n-words do not form asemantically uniform class across languages (p. 366).'' Finally, sheprovides a number of diagnostics for existential, universal and negativen-words. The chapter provides guidelines to incorporate discussionsindifferent generative models including the MP (checking theory). The styleand organisation of the chapter is in perfect harmony with the editorialpurposes behind the development of the BCS.

Chapter 46: Object Shift (pp. 392-436)

Stein Vikner's chapter is an investigation of object shift (OS) inScandinavian languages. The author provides a description of the OSphenomena in Icelandic and Danish, and then compares them with scramblingin German. This is followed by a review of GB- and minimalist approaches tothe study of OS: (a) case as the key to OS, (b) equidistance as the key toOS, and (c) focus and interpretation as the key to OS. Vikner's formulationof OS in terms of case-assignment is rather confusing: ''Object shift ispossible only if the case-assigning verb leaves VP because only then is thecase-assigned DP assigned case by a trace which again means that only thenis it possible for this DP not to be assigned case and therefore to moveinto a case position higher up in the clause (p. 416).'' Definitely, Viknerdoes not want a 'case-assigned DP' to be assigned a case a second time.Moreover, the analysis is not falsifiable as case assignment by trace issupposed to be optional. Once elaborating on equidistance as the key toobject shift , Vikner writes: ''If the verb would not move, [VP, Spec] and[AgrOP, Spec] would not belong to the same minimal domain and they wouldtherefore not be equidistant, and so the object could not leave its baseposition (p. 420).'' This is still formulated in the spirit of Move alpha inGB as it does not explain why alpha (here the shifted object) should moveat all even if minimality is not violated.

Chapter 47: Partial Wh-Movement (pp. 437-492)

In this chapter, Gisbert Fanselow is concerned with partial Wh-movement(PM) in German. The term PM is understood as the movement of aWh-expression to a position structurally lower than the position to whichit 'ought' to move. Descriptive generalisations are followed by a review offour major theoretical analyses of the phenomena in question: (a) thescope-marking analysis (von Stechow & Sternefeld 1988, Muller 1997, Beck &Berman 2000), (b) the feature-movement analysis (Hiemstra 1986, Cheng2000), (c) the indirect-dependency approaches: argumental WHAT (Davison1984, Mahajan 1990), and (d) the indirect-dependency approaches: expletiveWHAT (Mahajan 1996,Horvarth 1997). Examples from a number of otherlanguages such as Arabic and Hindi are also analysed to lend furthersupport to the theoretical and empirical analyses of PM in German.

Chapter 48: (Past) Participle Agreement (pp. 493-521)

Adriana Belletti's chapter focuses on past participle agreement (thenodeAgrPstPrtP) in Romance languages (French v. Italian). She argues thatthe object clitic projection in its movement to its landing site in theupper part of the clause passes through Spec of AgrPstPrtP and triggersagreement. This analysis is supported by the absence of agreement betweenthe past participle and the subject of intransitive/unergative andtransitive verbs: Only arguments in the lowest level of VP (typically thedirect object) are involved in past participle agreement. This can explainwhy past participles agreement co-occurs VPs with no external argument,e.g. unaccusative and passive constructions. As Agr nodes were firstdesignated under GB, and then dispensed with in the MP, the chapter provesto be rather limited in historical perspective.

Chapter 49: Phrasal Stress and Syntax (pp. 522-568)

Maria Luisa Zubizarreta and Jean-Roger Vergnaud's contribution is aselective review of the generative literature on the correlation betweenprosodic prominence and information structure (in Germanic, Bengali, andRomance). The prominence is captured in terms of informational focusstructure of the sentence with focus understood as the non-presupposed partof the sentence. In addition to the classical view (the Nuclear StressRule-based account by Chomsky 1971 and Jackendoff 1972), Cinque's (1993)revised theory of NSR and Zubizarreta's (1998) version are reviewedbriefly. Concerning the question of where the NSR applies, the authorsconclude that ''prosodic information (such as prosodic boundaries and mainprominence)must be present at the stage in the derivation where LF isconstructed (p. 548).'' For Zubizarreta's (1998) version of the standardmodel it is at the level of S-structure that prosodic information isincorporated. With SS dispended with in the MP, however, it is difficult torelate PF and LF as such. For a different perspective, the reader may referto Lotfi's (2006) formulation of his SPF as an alternative to SS.

Chapter 50: Pied-Piping (pp. 569-630)

Julia Horvath studies pied-piping phenomena in Germanic (esp. in English)in reference to a historical background of earlier generative accounts(Ross 1986, from his 1967 dissertation), analyses within the P&P frameworkof the 80s, and those with a minimalist perspective in the 90s and onwards.The analysis Horvath seems to support is a minimalist one in which headsproject features, and checking attracts either the head itself or the wholephrasal projection with the non-head material 'pied-piped' to it. Thechapter ranks high in style and organisation. It nicely summarises themajor theoretical trends of the past 40 years in the analysis ofpied-piping phenomena.

Chapter 51: Preposition Stranding (pp. 631-684)

Paul Law reviews three major analyses of P-stranding in Germanic andRomance, namely reanalysis (a Case-theoretic approach by Hornstein andWeinberg 1981 according to which '[t]he (apparent) object of thepreposition ... is in fact an object of the reanalyzed verb, and thewh-phrase object of these reanalyzed verbs may now be extracted since it isno longer governed and Case-marked with a [+oblique] Case by P afterreanalysis ...' p. 638), government-theoretic accounts (Kayne 1984, Bennis& Hoekstra 1984) and syntactic D-to-P-incorporation (Law 1998, VanRiemsdijk 1998) with P coalescing with the following D into a suppletiveform. ''[T]he lack of P-stranding may be considered tube a consequence of Pnot being separable from the following D (p. 647).'' Although theincorporation analysis is theoretically interesting, it seems to predictthat (a) a language with such suppletive forms must NOT allow P-stranding,and (b) a language permitting P-stranding must NOT have such forms. It isstill unclear how far these predictions will be borne out.

Chapter 52: Properties of VOS Languages (685-720)

Sandra Chung observes that while VOS is possible, though uncommon, as thedominant pragmatically neutral order in a language, OVS and OSV are rare ornon-existent. For Kayne (1994), the simplest possible clause structure isSVO. Any other order should have been driven via movement. Then VOS is theresult of VP raising. The author reviews the evidence proposed for VPraising in Malagasy and Seediq. She also focuses on the motivation for sucha raising in terms of EPP-feature checking. However, she shows that thereare languages such as Tzotzil and Chamorro whose syntactic profile deviatesfrom that of languages with verb-initial clauses derived by VP rising.Chung concludes that ''there are multiple syntactic routes to VOS-hood ...(p. 713).'' The chapter is rich in its coverage of both theoretical andempirical issues. It is also characterised with good style and coherentorganisation.

VOLUME IV

Chapter 53: Quantifier Scope Ambiguities (pp. 1-34)

Katlin E. Kiss's chapter is a summary of the treatment of quantifier scopeambiguities in a number of generative theories including early generativeanalyses of the topic (referring scope interpretation of scope to surfacestructure in EST and REST), May's (1977, 1985) accounts of scope ambiguityin terms of Q-raising, Fodor and Sag's (1982) analysis of the phenomena aslexical (rather than scope) ambiguity, a minimalist approach to scopeambiguities (Hornstein's theory of Q-raising via A-movement motivated bymorphological feature checking), Fox's (1995) theory of scopeinterpretation constrained by economy, Beghelli & Stowell's (1997) typologyof QPs in line with Liu's (1990) theory that scope possibilities depend onthe type of the quantifier, Kayne's (1998) theory of overt quantifiermovement, and Erteschnik-Shir's theory of focus structure. The languageemployed to summarise some less familiar works is sometimes obscure. Thereare also some rare examples of mistakes/typos (such as 'metafor' on page29, and 'usually-clause bound' on page 32) in need of editorial work.

Chapter 54: Reconstruction, Binding, and Scope (pp. 35-93)

Dominique Sportiche focuses on reconstruction phenomena in English. Thechapter is a review of descriptions, generalisations, and explanations forsuch phenomena. The evidence of binding and scope suggests thatreconstruction for movement is into traces. Moreover, it applies for bothA- and A-bar types of movement. As far as binding principles are concerned,reconstruction is not uniform: reconstruction for Condition A is possiblebut not required. For Condition C, on the other hand, there are timesreconstruction is obligatory, but there are also times it is optional. ForSportiche, LF is the level of representation where reconstruction takesplace. Considering movement as a process of copying, the author concludesthat ''[e]ither or both copies can be determined at LF (p. 85).'' The scopeof an XP, however, is interpreted in the position of the highest copyinterpreted. Although the review of the analyses proposed under P&P andearly MP approaches is deep and thorough, Sportiche does not refer to morerecent analyses of relevance like one in terms of Chomsky's phase theory.The chapter is reader-friendly in language and self-contained in content.An informal introduction to the subject matter is especially helpful inthis respect.

Chapter 55: Resumption (pp. 94-117)

James McCloskey investigates resumptive pronouns--obligatorily boundpronominal elements appearing in positions that are empty under othercircumstances--in English and Irish (among other languages touched heresuch as Arabic). The chapter is a review of major works on resumption donebetween 1972 and 2001 by Morgan (1972), Perlmutter (1972), Bresnan &Grimshaw (1978), McCloskey (1979, 1990), Sells (1984), Engdahl (1985), Aoun& Choueiri (1996, 2000) and Aoun et al. (2001). It is also concerned withthe properties of resumption, and resumption and movement: It is intendedto critically review the analyses of resumptive pronouns focusing on eitherof these two questions: (a) To what extent do resumptive pronouns sharefeatures of other classes of pronouns? (b) How far does the relationbetween a resumptive pronoun and its binder share the properties ofmovement? It emerges from the review of these analyses is that 'trueresumptive pronouns' appear inside islands, and show no reconstructioneffects. 'Apparent resumptive pronouns', on the other hand, are not trappedinside islands, and exhibit reconstruction effects.

Chapter 56: The SE-Anaphor and its Role in Argument Realization (pp. 118-179)

Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin reviews the empirical observations made in the 80sand 90s with regard to SE-anaphors (reflexive-reciprocal clitics like 'se'in French, Spanish and Romanis, or 'si' in Italian), types of SE(accusative, dative, and nominates SEs), and SE-verbs and therepresentation of agentivity. Cinque's (1988) analysis of two types ofnominative SE in Italian, and Dobrovie-Sorin's (1998) analysis ofnominative clitics and agreement features, and that of middle-passive SE incontrol infinitivals come next. Despite this, the chapter is primarilyconcerned with descriptive generalisations rather than explanations.

For Eva Schultze-Berndt, secondary predication is a label for a wide rangeof construction types including lexical nominal expressions, 'part'expressions, and adjunct. The author begins with a brief review ofAustralian languages. These languages are not homogeneous either in termsof genetic relationships or their typological characteristics. However,there is a genetic division of Australian languages into Pama-Nyungan (PN)and Non-Pama-Nyungan (NPN) families. While most Australian languages areagglutinating, some NPN languages are non-configurational. She then turnsto morphological and syntactic properties of depictive secondary predicatesin Australian. An account of depictives vs. adverbials brings the chapterto an end. As far as the style of writing is concerned, the chapter mayprove to be difficult to follow for less experienced readers unlessRothstein's chapter (pp. 209-233) is thoroughly studied first.

Chapter 58: Secondary Predication (pp. 209-233) Susan Rothstein focuses ontwo kinds of secondary predicates in English, namely, depictive predicates(in 'John-i drove the car drunk-i') and resultatives (in 'Jane painted thehouse-i red-i').The chapter is a review of semantic and syntacticapproaches to the study of the topic including Dowty's [phi CAUSE psi]analysis, GB analyses of depictives and resultatives as secondarypredicates, and more recent developments in the study of the phenomena withSP as an operation of predicate conjunction. With regard to the style andorganisation of the chapter, it is self-contained, brief, coherent, andeasy to follow. Moreover, it fully conforms to the editors' general planfor the BCS. Rothstein's subsection on 'recent developments', however, istoo brief (less than 2 pages).

Chapter 59: Serial Verbs (234-270)

Pieter Muysken and Tonjes Veenstra are concerned with description andclassification of verb serialisation, a construction in which a sequence ofjuxtaposed verbs syntactically express a single semantic clause with no usemade of overt coordinating conjunctions. Their examples mainly come fromSaramaccan an English-based creole language spoken in Suriname. Serialverbs share the following properties, according to Muysken and Veenstra:''(a) only one grammatical subject, (b) at most one grammatical object, (c)one specification for tense/aspect ..., (d) only one possible negator, (e)no intervening coordinating conjunction, (f) no intervening subordinatingconjunction, (g) no intervening pause (p. 238).'' The authors explore twotypological factors, namely, (1) independence of the subevents, and (2)freedom of lexical selection, giving rise to four logically possible typesof serial verb construction. They also deal with the hierarchical relationsbetween NP arguments in a serial verb construction, the concatenationprinciples of subordination, adjunction, and coordination, argument sharingin such constructions, and the typological correlates of serial verbs. Thefocus of the chapter is on description and generalisation rather thanexplanation and analysis. It fails to organically relate to any majorgenerative theory of syntax. The construction is not elevated above themargins of the theory of syntax.

Chapter 60: Sluicing (pp. 271-291)

In Jason Merchant's chapter on sluicing (defined as ellipsis phenomena withonly a wh-phrase remnant left behind after eliding the whole sentence, e.g.'what' in 'Jack bought something, but I don't know what'), we read aboutmovement and non-movement approaches to sluicing, empirical support foreither approach from a wide variety of languages, and puzzles and problemsinherent in either analysis. The chapter is well-written, easy to follow,coherent, and quite convenient in length. Merchant rightly emphasises thatsluicing ''is at the intersection of two of the best studied ... areas ofgenerative approach research, namely ellipsis and wh-movement (p. 272).''however, one may wonder why Merchant makes no single reference to thelatest developments made with regard to these two areas of study inminimalist syntax.

According to Marcel Den Dikken, specificational copular sentences are asubtype of copular sentences of the general format of XP be YP [where YP isnot a participial VP] where XP=CP/NP and YP=VP, e.g. in 'what they did waslose the game', or, on the other hand, XP=VP and YP=CP/NP as in 'lose thegame is what they did'. In a sentence like 'his supper is food for the dog'(Akmajian 1979), the NP 'food for the dog' is understood specificationallyif the NP is referential, i.e. the sentence is understood as saying 'heeats food for the dog for his supper'. And if the NP is non-referential, itwill be understood as 'his supper serves as food for the dog', which istermed predicational. Non-specificational copular sentences arepseudoclefts if the construction involves the extraction of non-focusedconstituents and preceding them by a wh-item. Apparently, it is only forthe specificational reading of the sentence that XP and YP can changeplaces with no change in meaning, as in 'food for the dog is his supper'.Den Dikken also reviews more fine-grained typologies for copular sentencessuch as those proposed by Higgins (1979) and Declerck (1988). The chaptercovers a good number of items related to the topic. It is well-written instyle, very detailed, and perhaps a little long as a single chapter in theBCS. However, it remains a summary (rather than a critical review) of majoranalyses of the topic with no explicit conclusion drawn. As such, thechapter is a bit too long but still incomplete!

Chapter 62: Split Topicalization (pp. 410-465)

Hanneke Van Hoof approaches ST as a special kind of topicalisation in which''a constituent's core is extracted to the pre-field while leaving itsnon-core behind in the middle-field of the clause (p. 411).'' The STphenomena are most extensively investigated with regard to Split NPTopicalisation (SNPT) and Split VP Topicalisation (SVPT) in German, whichVan Hoof describes and analyses in detail in this chapter. A subsection of7 pages, however, is devoted to reviewing research on the related phenomenain other languages including Modern Greek, Slavic and Chinese. Van Hoofexamines the syntactic properties and analyses of SNPT and SVPT atconsiderable length. Also different landing sites for ST are investigatedthoroughly and in reference to scrambling, contrastive left dislocation andtopicalisation. However, little is said on the differences (if there areany, according to Van Hoof) between scrambling and topicalisation. Theauthor seems to reduce cross-linguistic differences with respect to SNPT toparameterisation (p. 452) while other possible sources of difference (suchas lexical, morphological, and even phonological properties of NPs indifferent languages) are conceivable, too. Van Hoof questions the validityof the suggestion made (among others) by den Besten and Webelhuth (1990)according to which ST correlates with the availability of scrambling:''[A]lthough both German and Dutch are Scrambling languages that allow forSVPT, not all varieties of these languages have SNPT as well (p. 452).'' Theargument sounds imperfect as it is still possible for scrambling to be anecessary though insufficient condition for SNPT to take place.

Chapter 63: The Spray-Load Alternation (pp. 466-478)

Maya Arad's chapter deals with the locative alternation for such verbs as'spray' and 'load', which appear in two different syntactic structures witheither of their internal arguments as the direct object, and the other as agoal or a locatum, e.g. 'Lucy sprayed the paint on the well' or 'Lucysprayed the wall with paint'. Arad reviews three types of analyses of thetopic, namely, Levin and Rappaport's (1988) theory of thematic roles,Tenny's (1987) Aspectual Interface Hypothesis, and Borer's (1994)economy-based syntactic analysis of the phenomenon. As a very specific casestudy, Arad's chapter investigates the relation between the syntax andlexical semantics of this class of verbs rather briefly. The study does notget into the depth of either of the theoretical analyses reviewed, and isnot empirically rich either.

Chapter 64: Strong vs. Weak Islands (pp. 479-531)

Beginning with Ross's (1967) distinction between left dislocation and'chopping' (the former leaves a pro-form behind while the latter doesn't),Anna Szabolcsi identifies strong islands as those from which no extractionis allowed. For weak islands (WI), on the other hand, ''some phrases canextract, others cannot (p. 480).'' She provides a classical list of strongislands including complex DP with relative clause, complex DP withcomplement clause, definites, subjects, adjuncts, coordinate structures,tensed constituent wh-complements, and left branches. More recentliterature is also explored in detail to describe the full set of WIsincluding arguments, referentials, negative polarity items, etc. Twodimensions A (what extractions are sensitive to WIs?) and B (what contextsconstitute weak island?) are explored in this respect. Finally, therelevant theories--ECP, Subjacency, Relativized Minimality, Monotonicity,and the Scope Theory--are reviewed in reference to the specific phenomenaclassified under A or B. The chapter is not always easy to read due to thenature of the topic under study, which is deeply embedded in generativetheories of syntax.

Chapter 65: Stylistic Fronting (pp. 532-565)

Anders Holmberg investigates stylistic fronting in Icelandic, Faroese, andOld Scandinavian. The phenomenon consists of moving a category to theinitial position of finite sentences with a subject gap. He reviews anumber of analyses of the phenomenon developed between 1980 and 2000 suchas Maling's (1980), and Maling and Zaene's (1990) distinction betweentopicalisation and SF, characterisation of the context of SF, accessibilityhierarchy, and partial complementary distribution of SF and the expletivepronoun, Jonsson's (1991) analysis of SF as head movement vs. SF asXP-movement, and Holmberg's (2000) account of SF as expletive movement.Holmberg concludes that ''all SF is movement to Spec, IP ...(and seriouslyconsiders) the possibility that all of the categories moved by SF are, infact, phrasal, but that some of them consist of nothing but a head (p.554).'' As a result, he rejects the head movement analysis of SF, andproposes that ''SF is triggered by a condition that Spec, IP must be overtlyfilled,'' which he formalises as ''a feature [P] in I ... taken to be onehalf of the Extended Projection Principle (p. 549).'' Holmberg's analysis,however, doesn't get into the ontological status of things as, forinstance, it is not clear why language must have such features as [P] and[D] in the first place.

Chapter 66: Subextraction (pp. 567-600)

Norbert Corver's chapter deals with subextraction, which is extracting thedirect object noun phrase (as in 'this car I believe [that you really like--]') from within the embedded clause. The author notices that it is theentire NP that is fronted so that the sentence '*this I really like[--car]'is ungrammatical. The author examines different approaches taken to explainwhy specifying and modifying elements cannot be extracted from within thenominal and/or adjectival domain in English while in Russian and Latin sucha thing is allowed. Corver reviews Ross's (1986) Left Branch Condition,Emonds's (1985) Generalized LBC, subextraction from the 'wat voor'N-construction in Dutch, and subextraction in Slavic languages (Corver1990,1992) in this respect, and concludes that ''languages whose nominalsproject to DP do not permit subextraction of specifying or modifyingelements'' while those ''whose nominal projections lack the DP-level ...permit subextraction from the nominal domain (p. 591).'' He argues thatRussian lacks a DP, and that ''potential candidates for the category D, likedemonstratives, possessive pronoun, etc., should be analyzed as adjectives(p. 592).'' Corver's analysis, however, wrongly predicts that Persian, whichuses demonstratives instead of 'true' Ds, must permit subextraction fromthe nominal domain as Russian does. The prediction is not borne out.

Chapter 67: Subject Clitics and Complex Inversion (pp. 601-659)

Jean-Yves Pollock makes the observation that French syntacticallydistinguishes between pronominal and non-pronominal subjects as anauxiliary verb like 'aller' or a main verb like 'penser' may invert withpronominal subjects but NOT with non-pronominals. Subject Clitic Inversion(SCLI) and Stylistic Inversion (SI) in French treat non-pronominal subjectsdifferently, but strong pronominals 'lui' or 'toi' pattern after propernames and full DPs in SCLI constructions. Pollock examines theroot/non-root asymmetry displayed by SCLI and Complex Inversion (CI) andconcludes that the phenomena cannot involve any overt movement to the CPfield (as Hulk 1993, Kayne 1994, and Sportiche 1993 conclude) ''only if andonly if the computation to the CP field in SCLI and SI is head movement (p.619).'' For Pollock, however, SCLI and CI involve pre-spellout computationsto the CP field as Remnant Movement to the specifier position of afunctional projection called HP. Remnant IP is attracted to HP to check theinterrogative feature on the H head of the left periphery. SI is nowdifferent from SCLI and CI in the layer of the Comp domain that its RemnantIP targets. The chapter is wide and extensive in its empirical coverage.Although it is a shortened and simplified version of the second chapter ofPoletto and Pollock (2004), it is still among the most technical chaptersof the collection. The author's glosses for French examples are too brief(e.g. 'Peter-Neg-it-to-him-will-give-you-not' as the gloss for 56b 'Pierrene le lui donnera-t-il pas?' with no English equivalent given for the wholesentence), if provided. This makes the chapter more difficult to read ifyou don't know French.

Chapter 68: Subjunctives (pp. 660-684)

Josep Quer studies the syntactic properties of the subjunctive mood mainlyin Romance languages. For Quer, subjunctive is essentially an epiphenomenonderived from different lexical, syntactic or semantic factors. Subjunctiveclauses are said to form more transparent domains than indicative ones. Forinstance, in most Romance languages, they are subordinate clauses showingobviation effects, i.e. the matrix subject cannot antecede the embeddedsubject. Subjunctive forms are associated with defective tense properties.They are claimed to have an idiosyncratic complementiser with operatorproperties. Subjunctive clauses and indefinite nominals are similar withregard to wh-extraction patterns. Even these general tendencies are farfrom being universal. Quer concludes that subjunctives ''do not constitute auniform class; not only cross-linguistically but also within languages (p.679).'' While the conclusion is a valid one, the chapter seems to take itfor granted that whatever unifies subjunctive forms within and acrossdifferent languages must be a syntactic factor, e.g. some Mood Phrase (MP)inside the left periphery of the sentence. Although subjunctives aresyntactic creatures, it can still be up to certain semantico-cognitivefactors to assign such syntactic properties to subjunctive forms. Not allaspects of syntax need to be autonomous.

Chapter 69: Syntactic Haplology (pp. 685-710)

Ad Neeleman and Hans Van de Koot review descriptive generalisations (but noanalyses) proposed for haplology (the Repeated Morph Constraint) mainly inDutch plus examples from some other languages including Spanish and German.The constraint is intended to capture the resistence against accidentalrepetition of morphemes, e.g. in '??die die dat rooie haar heeft' in Dutch.The authors elaborate on the strategies of tolerance, avoidance, deletion,and suppletion once a morpheme is accidentally repeated in a construction.While a number of sources for haplology phenomena are introduced, e.g.repetition of phonological forms or syntactic features, examples taken fromdifferent languages are juxtaposed rather carelessly so thatgeneralisations may be misunderstood as universal tendencies.

VOLUME V

Chapter 70: The Syntax of Modal Auxiliaries (pp. 1-22)

Sjef Barbiers examines five major analyses of the modal alternation betweenepistemic (speaker-matrix-subject oriented qualification of the truth of aproposition), and root (the emphasis on the ability, will, permission, etc.to perform an action) interpretations: (a) Ross (1969): epistemicinterpretation for modals as one-place predicates, and root modals astwo-place predicates, (b) Hofmann (1966), and Perlmutter (1970): epistemicmodals as subject raising structures, and root modals as controlstructures, (c) Picallo (1990): a higher functional position for epistemicmodals, and a lower lexical position for root modals, (d) McDowell (1987):epistemic modals are undergo movement at LF while root modals areinterpreted in situ, and (e) Barbiers (1995, 2002): epistemicinterpretation forced by complements denoting an unchangeable state orevent. All in all, the chapter is both coherent and easy to follow.However, some analyses are not explored in detail, e.g. Butler's (2003)analysis of modals in term of phases (p. 16).

Fabio Pianesi focuses on the referential and non-referential approaches totemporal operators and entities. The referential approach considers suchentities as those organised in a natural sequence (theearlier-than/later-than relation). The non-referential approach, which isnot popular among linguists but revived recently by Ludlow 1999, originatedby philosophers who believe that tense cannot be captured in terms ofprecedence as ''the very basic question of whether reference to time is tobe admitted or not among the tools of the theory is still an open issue ...(p. 119).'' Although the non-referential approach, which Pianesi openlytakes side with, is both theoretically and empirically interesting,Ludlow's work seems to be too marginal among the generative studies of thepast 40 years to be treated at such a length and in a collection like theBCS. The chapter simply puts in perspective what a philosophical approachto temporal reference may amount to once adopted by linguists.

Chapter 73: Topicalization in Asian Languages (pp. 137-174)

Liejiong Xu investigates topicalisation in Chinese and Japanese as twotopic-prominent Asian languages which share a number of syntactic, semanticand pragmatic properties as in both of them ''[t]he topic occurs to the leftof a full comment sentence. It is definite or generic and is characterizedby shared familiarity to both the speaker and the hearer (p. 138).'' Theauthor reviews movement and base-generation analyses of topicalisationphenomena. Focus in contrast with topic is also discussed briefly towardsthe end of the chapter. The chapter is not stylistically flawless: Theauthor makes too many general references while reviewing the researchbackground, e.g. 'opinions differ among Chinese linguists' (p. 141),'linguists who do not believe that ...' (p. 152), or 'universally agreed byJapanese linguists' (p. 150), without saying which specific people arealluded to. The chapter has got no concluding section but an appendix inits stead.

Chapter 74: Unexpected Wide-Scope Phenomena (pp. 175-228)

E. G. Ruys describes the scope properties of 'specific' NPs in English suchas 'some movie' in 'every girl will be happy if some movie is shown' wherethe indefinite NP can be outside the scope of 'every girl'. Ruys beginswith the issue of specificity approached either as indefinite NPs with aninherent binary ambiguity, or, on the other hand, as indefinites alwaysbeing quantificational expressions with the specific vs. non-specificambiguity as a scope ambiguity. The 'island-escaping scope' effect as in'if a relative of mine dies, I will inherit a fortune', with a wide-scope(or 'specific') interpretation for the indefinite NP 'a relative of mine',cannot be explained via postulating the extraction of indefinites from theif-clause because '[i]f indefinites under-went unrestricted QR, thenwide-scope 'distributive' readings for plural indefinites would naturallybe expected (p. 219)'' as in 'if three relatives of mine die, I will inherita house', which is not borne out. In Reinhart's (1997) alternativeanalysis, on the other hand, indefinites are interpreted in situ as openformulae that contains a free variable. According to Ruys, such a variableis necessarily of the choice function (CF) type in order to have thecorrect semantics. Like many other generative linguists, Ruys takes theexistence of LF as formulated in GB theories for granted throughout thechapter. However, given that no other chapter in the BCS focuses on LF(which is a pity given the centrality of LF issues in GB and MP), suchcentral controversies over the status of LF in grammar as those raised byBrody's Lexico-Logical Form and Chomsky's phase theory could be treated aswell.

Susi Wurmbrand's chapter is a summary of empirical and theoreticalquestions and analyses (movement vs. restructuring) concerning verbclusters in West Germanic. Verb clusters are constructions with more thanone verbal element like 'that John must (1) have (2) been (3) elected (4)'in English, or 'dass Hans gewahlt (4) worden (3) sein (2) muss (1)' inGerman. The major empirical concern of the chapter is 'the determination ofthe (im)possible orders of verbal elements in different constructions anddifferent languages and dialects ... (p. 231).'' The author argues that suchclusters cannot be derived (exclusively) by head incorporation. a purephrasal movement analysis can be maintained (for Dutch clusters) ifidiomatic phrases and particles are assumed to be subject to a vacuousmovement constraint. Both mono-clausal and bi-clausal restructuringanalyses of verb clusters are reviewed rather briefly. No specificevaluation is made concerning the validity of each apart from consideringrestructuring as ''an interesting and potentially very fruitful area forfurther research (p. 323).'' As for the validity of verb-cluster movementanalyses, which assume such a movement is triggered by some syntacticfeature in need of checking or a licensing condition to be met, Wurmbrandobserves (I think correctly) that ''generally, these features or conditionsare simply stated as being present in one language vs. absent in another,or weak in one language vs. strong in another, and moreover they are notrelated to any property of the particular language (group) they arepostulated for (p. 285).'' To my disappointment, however, the authorimmediately adds that ''the aim of this perhaps slightly negative discussionis not to criticize any of the existing approaches to verb clusters, butrather to point out that there are issues that have not been settled yetand hence offer an interesting terrain for further research (p. 285).'' Assuch, the chapter remains a summary (rather than a critical review) ofanalyses of verb clusters made in the past two decades of generativeresearch on the topic.

Chapter 76: Verb Particle Constructions (pp. 344-375)

Martin Haiden investigates verb particle constructions--''collocations of averb and another element, like call+up ... (p. 345)''--in Germanic VO/OVlanguages. Formulating the problems inherent in the study of suchconstructions along Ludeling's (2001) 'delimitation problem' (that V+Xcombinations are mainly inconsistent in their patterns of behaviour),Haiden proceeds to relate distributional, morphological, syntactic andfunctional properties of particles in these languages. Lexicalist,semi-lexicalist and syntactic analyses of the phenomena, e.g. Stiebels andWunderlich (1994), Groos (1989), Toivonen (2001), Zeller (1999), Den Dikken(1995), and Ludeling (2001) are reviewed throughout the chapter. Haidencannot reach any conclusion concerning the nature of verb particleconstructions, and concludes the chapter with repeating the introductoryremark that ''what native speakers perceive as a verb particle construction,a particle-verb, a phrasal verb, etc., in a given language does not haveconsistent phrase structural or functional properties, and therefore doesnot have a single representation in an explanatory theory (pp. 371-372).''

Chapter 77: Wh-in-Situ (pp. 376-438)

Josef Bayer examines wh-in-situ phenomena in both wh-in-situ and wh-movinglanguages mostly within the framework of LF theory. As a case study, theauthor focuses on wh-scope Bengali an Eastern Indo-Aryan language thatemploys a clitic-like optional element as a yes/no interrogative marker.Reviewing the GB theory of LF movement, unselective binding analysis, andthe D-linked accounts of wh-in-situ phenomena, he concludes that thedifferences between wh-in-situ and wh-moving languages are parameterised,that wh-scope is necessarily due to (overt/covert) movement, and that whilethe interrogative force must rest in a clause-peripheral functionalposition to take scope, the wh-element in situ is not an operator at allbut a kind of variable. The chapter sets a good example for contributionsto works like the BCS: a very good introduction to the topic, very littlepresupposed, reasonable length, and wide theoretical and empiricalcoverage. The episode on Bengali, however, is not well incorporated intothe chapter so that although the section contributes greatly to theinvestigation of the topic, it damages the coherence of the whole chapter.Also the review of the analyses of the phenomena does not do justice tominimalist accounts of interrogatives in general and wh-in-situ inparticular. A major work like Hagstrom's (1998) groundbreaking study ofwh-in-situ in Japanese, Sinhala, and Okinawan, for instance, is not evenmentioned in Bayer's chapter on wh-in-situ.

CONCLUSION: GENERAL NOTES ON THE COMPANION

The BCS is definitely among the most outstanding reference works everproduced for the field of generative syntax. It will stay with us for yearsto come as an indispensable research tool. No surprise, then, that Chomskydescribes it as ''unique in character and designed with great skill and care... An invaluable research tool for the study of language.'' Every libraryfor graduate students of syntax must have the volumes on their shelves. Theeditors of the companion will be always remembered for the great servicethey did to the linguistics community. However, there is always some spacefor improvement, and the BCS is no exception.

The alphabetical structure of the companion makes it quite accessible.However, some readers may simply miss a chapter or section of interestgiven the absence of a more conceptual structuring of the work, which canbe easily amended with a conceptual map of the companion added to the tableof contents, or a 'further reading' section at the end of each chapter. Amore thorough introduction to the BCS where the editors would introducechapters would benefit the reader, too.

Like any other reference book, the BCS cannot satisfy everyone's taste andneeds when it comes to the selection of topics. However, there are stillsome major themes that the companion fails to treat thoroughly. Logicalforms, thematic roles, and the question of economy and optimality in thetheories of syntax are among the topics which deserve a more thoroughtreatment. The editors have confined the companion to the work done inmainstream generative linguistics. Some groundbreaking work in generativesyntax, however, originated in such generative theories of syntax as LFG,GPSG, HPSG, and OT.

Finally, the languages in focus in the BCS chapters are not selected inproportion to the amount/significance of research done on them. Instead,the choice of language and topic seems to primarily reflect the editors'research interests. As a result, a good number of chapters focus on thesyntactic phenomena characterising North and West Germanic languages. Thenit should not surprise us that there are about 140 pages in the collectionwith at least one reference made to Icelandic. The number is reduced to 4for Persian! Some other languages like Slavonic, African, Semitic, andAsian languages are not in a much better position given the great bulk ofdata available on them.

REFERENCES

Abney, Steven (1987). The English Noun Phrase in its Sentential Aspect.Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.

Akmajian, Adrian (1979). Aspects of the Grammar of Focus in English. NewYork: Garland.

Aoun, Joseph and Lina Choueiri (1996). Resumption and Last Resort.Unpublished manuscript, University of Southern California.

Dr. Ahmad R. Lotfi, faculty member of Azad University at Khorasgan(Esfahan) where he teaches advanced courses in syntax to graduate studentsof English. His research interests include minimalist syntax, secondlanguage acquisition studies in generative grammar, and Persian linguistics.